A major networking conference focused on centering women in computing is facing backlash from some participants after a flood of males were allowed to attend, reportedly due to the event’s inclusivity policies.

Created in 1994 and inspired by the legacy of Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, the AnitaB.org Grace Hopper Celebration purports to “bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront.” While the conference was historically focused on women, recent developments in its gender inclusivity policy saw its branding open up to “non-binary” participants as well.

In its most recent Press Release on the conference, AnitaB.org deemed it “the world’s largest gathering of women and non-binary technologists.”

But the week-long conference, which costs $650 to attend for students and academics but over $1,200 for the general public, is facing heat this year after some female attendees noticed a “significant number of men” attending the event.

In a now-scrubbed Change.org petition, one female attendee calls on the Grace Hopper Committee (GHC) to provide women who purchased the pricy tickets a full refund, and commit to banning men in the future.

“GHC (2023) is named after our pioneering female programmers, who have paved the way for gender equality within the tech industry. This event was established with the intention of empowering women by creating a safe space where they can connect, learn, and thrive. However, by allowing men to participate, GHC fails to uphold its own mission,” petitioner Agnes Lu wrote in the description.

The petition was uploaded on September 26, but deleted on September 27. A cached version of the page shows that it had collected over 2,700 signatures in the 24 hours it had been active. The reasons for removal are currently unknown.

Similar sentiment was shared on Reddit as a conference attendee posted “why are there so many men at Grace Hopper?”

Posted two days ago, the user wrote: “I’m seeing entire groups of just men, at a conference that’s sole purpose is to give opportunities to WOMEN and non-binary individuals in a male dominated field. I attended last year and did not [see] any male identifying student attendees. This is genuinely infuriating.”

The user goes on to articulate in the replies that there are a limited number of networking slots available and internships are fiercely competitive.

Like in the petition, the user claimed there was an obvious discernible difference between males and “non-binary” individuals, an issue that quickly became a point of contention in the comments.

“They could just be non-binary, gender queer, etc, or that could just be men trying to get a leg up. No way to know,” one user wrote in response, to which the original poster replied: “They all have he/him on their lanyards and it’s extremely clear they identify as men and are here to take opportunities away from the actual women and [non-binary] attendees.”

But the attempted defense was quickly undermined, with some users calling the original poster a “TERF” for failing to include gender-diverse non-binary people.

“Nonbinaries, including he/him nonbinaries, belong at grace hopper and are welcome there. TERFs like you are the ones who shouldn’t be there,” one comment reads.

“Lots of NB go as he/him. The only way you could possibly know is if you asked them,” another claimed.

On X (formerly Twitter), users debated how males could be “gate-kept” from the conference without being exclusionary, to which few solutions were provided.

The conference was held in Orlando this year, in tradition with previous years, but has announced it will relocate for the next iteration due to changes to recent state legislation regarding LGBT people.

In a statement on their site, AnitaB.org claims that Florida has introduced an “onslaught of legislation that not only devalues women and non-binary people and, at the intersections, those who live as members of the LGBTQIA+ community but is also aimed at erasing Black history.” It states that the 2024 conference is being arranged to be held in another location.

One of the featured speakers this year was trans-identified male Sasha Costanza-Chock, who describes himself as a “researcher and designer who works to support community-led processes that build shared power, dismantle the matrix of domination, and advance ecological survival.”

Costanza-Chock spoke on a panel with Alejandra Caraballo, a trans-identified male attorney, on the “Intersection of Tech and Social Justice.” The panel was described as “diving into the critical intersection of technology and social equity and explore how technology can inadvertently become a barrier for underserved groups.”

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A trans-identified male who works for a UK-based charity to provide “diversity training” has been honored with the Outstanding Female LGBTQIA+ Champion 2023 award. Katie Neeves, formerly Martin, has previously prompted criticism for stating during a training session that he used to steal his sister’s underwear.

The Outstanding Female LGBTQIA+ Champion award given to Neeves was presented at the at the East and West Midlands Women’s Awards on September 22. According to its official website, the purpose of the Women’s Awards is “to raise awareness, recognize and honor the hard work and valuable contribution women of all cultures, communities, races, and beliefs, in all sectors make.” Among the event’s sponsors are Loughborough University and the University of Leicester School of Business.

In social media posts where Neeves shared the news, he also boasted about several other awards he’d received in the past twelve months.

“It’s been the most amazing year for me, as in the last 12 months I have won the British Diversity Awards Hero of the Year 2023, the Trans in the City Trans Community Champion Award 2022 and the This is Us Awards Training & Development Award 2023. Also, I was listed on the DIVA Power List 2023, I was a DIVA Awards Unsung Hero of the Year Finalist 2023 and I was named as a LinkedIn Top Voice as well as becoming a co-presenter of BBC Sounds series ‘Time for some LGBTea,'” Neeves wrote.

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Neeves began to identify as a “woman” in 2018 at the age of 48, and soon after started to promote himself as a “trans ambassador” via his Youtube channel, Cool2BTrans, and through his blog of the same name.

Prior to launching Cool2BTrans, Neeves had worked as a professional photographer and, according to Leicester Live, had “photographed the Queen at Buckingham Palace, covered wars and attended Princess Diana’s funeral for IPC magazines.”

Neeves announced his new identity very publicly and created a series of videos that he sent to all of his photography clients. In one video, Neeves describes how he began crossdressing as a fetish and “envied the girls,” but began to “embrace” it as a “hobby” during his twenties.

He explains that he was first able to “admit” to himself that he is actually a woman after speaking with a “clairvoyant” who consulted with a “spirit.” He also describes the manner in which he intended to “go full-time” as female.

“My transition is going to be very public, very bold, and very out there. No apologies for that. I’ll be starting on HRT soon, which should start to give me the feminine curves that I would like, and I need, in order to be happy,” said Neeves at the time.

“It’s a slow progress, so I’m not going to all of a sudden be turning up with massive, great big double-E breasts,” he says, laughing. “Hopefully the HRT will reverse some of my male-pattern baldness. I really hope it does. It’s something I’m very worried about.”

Neeves has on several occasions elaborated on how his cross-dressing fetish led him to pursue a transgender identity. In an interview announcing his self-declared identity, Neeves told Leicester Live, “My earliest memory is when I was about three, I preferred to wear my sister’s knickers, not realizing this was anything to bother about – until mum found out and chastised me.

“I still kept borrowing my sister’s clothes (and my girlfriend’s), in secret though, all through until my early 20s,” Neeves added. The interview describes Neeves as having “soft skin” as a result of taking female hormones, and as “a naturally slightly-built person” with “an enviable figure.”

Last year, one woman who attended a training session hosted by Neeves leaked video clips of him discussing instances in which he had stolen his sister’s underwear in his youth. Sarah Summers explained that the webinar was delivered to “a large, London-based corporation as part of LGBT history month.”

In the leaked video clips, Neeves could be heard saying, “In my childhood, I used to secretly dress in my sister’s clothes whenever I had the opportunity. And whenever I did it, it felt so right. But then those feelings of being right were very quickly overtaken by feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing. Because what I was doing was wrong, it was dirty, it was naughty, and not what respectable people did.”

Neeves also told the employees during the diversity training webinar that he was a lesbian woman.

“In my case, I’ve always been attracted to women, and I still am. It’s been one of the constants in my life. It’s just that for me, the labels changed. Previously, I was labeled as a heterosexual man, now I’m labeled as a lesbian.”

Identifying as a lesbian, Neeves suggests, caused a rift in his marriage: “As for my wife, her label hadn’t changed,” he said.

Neeves had previously disclosed how his relationship with his wife deteriorated as a result of his sexual fetish. Speaking with Leicester Live, he describes the moment he confessed to his wife while watching a television program about a woman whose husband was a cross-dresser: “My wife at the time said jokingly, you’d never do that to me would you? I said, ‘well actually, I do’ … We patched it over and managed 13 years together but it was always there, and we finally divorced,” said Neeves.

In recent years, Neeves has repeatedly mentioned his cross-dressing history and the theft of his sister’s underwear. In 2021, he told DIVA, a publication aimed at lesbians, that his “need” to cross-dress had manifested as young as his childhood.

“I remember around the age of four I was caught trying on my sisters clothes and when I did it, I felt right. But when my mum caught me she told me off. For the next week, every day she would pull my shorts down to check if I had them on and it was very humiliating,” he said.

In a video Neeves shared in 2019 titled “Losing Family & Friends for Being Transgender,” he discusses how his sister has refused to accept his self-declared female identity. He then reads aloud a letter he sent to his sister which states that he is “sad” that she “doesn’t accept” his transgender status.

The letter continues with Neeves telling his sister that if he hadn’t been able to identify as a woman, he “likely” would have “spiraled into depression.”

“That’s why the trans suicide rate is so high,” Neeves says. He then lists off statistics put forward in 2012 by UK charity Stonewall which claim that 48% of trans-identified people have attempted suicide. The findings of the report have been criticized for its sample size of just 27 individuals.

In 2020, Neeves published an open letter to J.K. Rowling in response to her essay expressing concern at the clash between gender ideology and women’s rights. He accused the renowned author of “peddling anti-trans misinformation” and made an unfounded claim that her “diatribe directly caused some trans children to self-harm and others to attempt suicide.”

Neeves has spoken at Leicester College in the past, and last March a webinar hosted by Neeves and platformed by the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion, sold tickets at the price of £63.22 per person.

Neeves has also publicly campaigned against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for its stance that gender identity presents a conflict to women’s sex-based rights. In February last year, he shared a petition created by Stonewall which declared that “the EHRC is not fit for purpose.”

The month prior, the EHRC had told the Scottish government that proposed reforms that allow for a self-declaration of sex do not adequately take into account the rights of women.

Earlier this month, Neeves delivered an 8-part “trans awareness session” at Leicestershire Partnership National Health Service Trust, in which he taught public hospital staff that biological sex existed on a spectrum.

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Australia’s Human Rights Commission has released a preliminary decision prohibiting lesbians from holding events for females due to the exclusion of men who identify as “women.” The Commission’s decision comes after a lesbian rights group applied for an exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

The application to the Commission was submitted by long-time Australian women’s rights activist Jean Taylor on behalf of herself and the members of the Lesbian Action Group, a collective established to address discrimination experienced by lesbians. The application provided an overview of lesbian organizing and gatherings in Victoria since the early 1970s, arguing that, “many thousands of lesbians benefited from the sense of pride, recognition and wellbeing that a large, well [publicized], public lesbian specific gathering encourages in the participants.”

However, this started to change in 2003 when trans activists challenged the organizers of the 2004 Lesbian Festival, accusing female-only spaces as being discriminatory under the law. This caused the festival organizers to seek and be awarded an exemption that allowed them to invite and only allow access to “lesbians born female.” 

The exemption was revoked on a technicality, resulting in lesbian gatherings in Australia being driven underground for almost two decades in an effort to avoid more challenges from the transgender community.

The Sex Discrimination Act was then amended in 2013 to include gender identity, making it even more difficult to organize single-sex events.

Frustrated by the situation, the Lesbian Action Group attempted to organize a female-only lesbian event at the Victorian Pride Centre this past August. The event was meant to celebrate International Lesbian Day on October 15, 2023, but the Pride Centre declined the booking, claiming that it was exclusionary and conflicted with the organization’s aim of supporting “equality, diversity and inclusion.”

As a result, the Lesbian Action Group applied for a 5-year exemption with the Australian Human Rights Commission with the intention of approaching another venue for the International Lesbian Day event if the exemption was granted. The group also intended to subsequently hold regular female-only lesbian events during its exemption period.

After receiving the application, the Commission requested further information from the Lesbian Action Group, asking for more details about why it is “reasonable and necessary to exclude the relevant groups mentioned in the application and restrict the event to female born lesbians.”

The Group then complied and provided a document of additional information further explaining the importance for minority groups like lesbians to have the freedom to associate with one another and to hold their own events.

The Commission received a total of 236 submissions on the application from individuals and groups by the closing date of September 1, 2023. Of those submissions, 123 individuals and 15 organizations were in favor of the exemption while 82 individuals and 14 organizations were opposed.

One of the applications opposed to the exemption came from Equal Opportunity Tasmania and referred to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner ruling late last year that women-only events are discriminatory towards men who claim they are women. 

In its ruling, the Tasmanian Commissioner wrote that “The applicants propose to exclude ‘biological males’ from their event… The exclusion of such persons engages the provisions of the act prohibiting direct discrimination on the basis of gender and gender identity.”

Like the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s preliminary view is that it will not grant the temporary 5-year exemption sought by the Lesbian Action Group to host its International Lesbian Day Event or to hold subsequent female-only lesbian events.

While the Commission recognized that “lesbians in Australia have faced structural and entrenched discrimination” and that “it may be important and beneficial for lesbians to gather together as a community,” it nevertheless was not persuaded that it is appropriate or reasonable to “make distinctions between women based on their cisgender or transgender experience.”

The ruling continued:

“The Commission notes that the grant of this exemption may lead to the further exclusion of and discrimination against same-sex attracted transgender women. Transgender women are a group who have and continue to experience discrimination, harassment and social exclusion.”

Australian women’s rights activist Janet Inglis took to X (formerly Twitter) to express her disappointment with the decision.

“Australian lesbians are being denied fairness,” she wrote. “They are being denied their humanity. I am so ashamed of my country.”

Speaking to Reduxx, Inglis said that Victoria is now joining Tasmania in “forcing lesbians underground and out of the public sphere.”

Inglis called it a “damning indictment of Australia” that both federal legislation and the Human Rights Commission have barred lesbians from holding single-sex events.

“The gender amendments to the SDA [Sex Discrimination Act] must be repealed. Our HRC has proven itself unfit for purpose and must be disbanded if it can no longer distinguish between men and women because of shonky legislation,” she explained. “A true HRC would be working to repeal those amendments and restore the rights of lesbians to be recognised in their own right.”

On X, Inglis also called on others to consider making a submission to respond to the Commission’s preliminary view before the October 3, 2023 deadline.

“The War on Women is gaining pace in Australia,” she added. “Australia is so far down the gender rabbit hole it’s truly frightening.”

This is not the first time that Australian women have run into issues with the law in regard to gender identity.

In May of this year, a woman was visited by New South Wales Police after she spoke to media about a trans activist by the name of Riley Dennis who was reportedly injuring female players in a women’s football league. The woman was given an Apprehended Violence Order which required her not to discuss Dennis. Reduxx was also contacted by the Australian eSafety Commissioner and advised to censor or delete an article naming Dennis.

Later that month, two women in Australia were contacted by Twitter and informed that they had broken Australian law by criticizing a trans-identified male for breastfeeding a child.

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The city of Berlin has prompted outrage from locals after offering a graphic picture book on prostitution to children via its official website. The book, titled Rosie Needs Money (Rosi sucht Geld), is advertised as a resource for youth aged 6 to 12 years old.

According to Equal Opportunities Officer Kerstin Drobick, the book is designed to explain prostitution to children of families residing in a red-light district of Berlin, located in Kurfürstenkiez, known as Kurfürstenstraße.

“In the years in which the Tiergarten Süd and Schöneberger Norden neighborhood management offices dealt with the issue of street prostitution and also had many conversations with residents, this was one of the topics: What do I say to the child? The Tiergarten Süd district management has faced this courageously,” Dobrick says in her defense of the book.

“An order was placed for a children’s book that tried to explain to the children what was happening there. Interestingly, extensive research has shown that educational books for children aged 10 and over avoid this explanation.”

Drobick also explains that the book on prostitution, which features graphic illustrations, was created with the participation of “primary school children and other people” as part of a community project.

Rosie Needs Money is written from the perspective of a child named Maryam, whose family relocated to Germany from Syria.

Maryam narrates as she and her equally-young schoolmate, Martin, look for Rosie, a woman from Bulgaria who is in the sex trade. Maryam says that her mother told her that Rosie is often “looking for money” in the street. Rosie is described as having many friends who are also migrant women from Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, and Lithuania.

“But they don’t seem to find much money. Their clothes are not enough. Their breasts and legs must freeze in winter,” observes Maryam. “Today we decided to finally ask Rosie what she does with men. Actually, we already know. They give her money and want to make love.”

Martin then appears to reference pornography, saying: “It’s different from mom and dad. Mom makes love to dad, but Rosie’s men don’t make love, they make sex like on TV.”

In the book, Rosie suggests that men use prostitutes due to lonliness, and advertises the sex trade as a legitimate and important field.

“You want to know what this has to do with love and sex? Everyone acts as if love and sex are always the same. Men say this to me and to their wives at home. But sometimes love is gone. Or the sex. That’s why my customers just want to talk to me and they give me money in return,” Rosie tells the children, before explaining how she has sex with clients in a flippant way.

“Most of the time it’s like this: Men want to put their penis in my vagina. A few times in and a few times out – and you’re done. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

The book also explains that Rosie gives condoms to the men which they “put over their penises for sex.” This is done to prevent pregnancy and as “protection against disease,” a statement that is accompanied by a disturbing child-like drawing of a smiling penis with a pink condom on it.

Bizarrely, the book concludes with quotes from children and young people who live in areas where street prostitution takes place. Most of the sentiment is overwhelmingly negative, and presented as examples of attitudes towards prostitution in youth which require discussion.

“I’m ashamed to live here… I can’t sleep well at night… Why is there no prostitution next to a town hall?” wonders one youth.

“I’m afraid of the johns. Even though I have curtains, I’m afraid to change in my room. Why do we residents and the ladies have to suffer just because the men can’t find a wife?” asks another.

Speaking to Reduxx, Elly Arrow, a German advocate for the abolition of the sex industry, calls the whole book “schizophrenic,” noting that the children quoted in the book clearly don’t want to see the industry normalized.

“They’re suffering, scared of johns and pimps,” Arrow said. “One girl astutely comments that somehow prostitution is not happening next to City Hall. German politicians are happy to enable prostitution and overlook criminal elements, as long as they can rake in tax euros, its not happening in their backyard, and it’s overwhelmingly the mothers and daughters from impoverished Eastern European families standing by the street side.”

“Berlin prides itself on tolerance and inclusion, sacrificing minority girls and women – for example, from the Roma minority – or refugee boys and young men from Syria, to the whims of sadistic German men. And anyone who uses the street is likely to have a sadistic streak as the human misery is so palpable,” she added.

“The brochure is unbelievably irresponsible. It is right to teach kids to not disrespect women in street prostitution but the brochure makes it out that these women could become a child’s friends! Due to a language barrier and the presence of sex buyers and pimps this is implausible and dangerous. Kids in the latter part of the brochure even state the whole situation makes them afraid but the brochure tries to actively remove that fear,” Arrow told Reduxx.

“Youth in [the red light district] are already exposed to visible drug use, witnessing highly objectified, barely clothed women, and the men intimidating and harassing them. The quotes from girls indicate they realize that men might look at them and want to do to them what they do to the women. That alone is highly destructive to girls’ self image and body image,” she said.

In addition to the children’s book, Berlin government officials have previously given a presentation titled “Sex work and neighborhood in the Kurfürstenkiez” for community members using the facilities at a local elementary school.

Arrow said that the decriminalization of the sex trade in Germany has resulted in the exploitation of migrant women, as well as boys and young men, and emphasized that there had been a recent increase in the numbers of women from Ukraine who had fled their home country after the Russian invasion. According to government statistics, the amount of women from Ukraine registered as “prostitutes” doubled between 2021 and 2022.

Last year, Reduxx reported that Google searches for terms such as “Ukrainian girls,” “Ukrainian porn,” and “war porn” spiked during the first week of the conflict.

It was later learned that a Berlin-based “sex work” advocacy agency “made up of trans and non-binary sexworkers” used social media to solicit Ukrainian refugee women for information on entering the legal German sex trade.

UPDATE 09/26/23: German residents are now reporting that the PDF file featuring the book on the Berlin Government’s website has been removed.

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A woman in Germany has been warned by a court after comparing a transgender organization’s recently-adopted mascot and a symbol known to be used by pedophiles. Rona Duwe, a women’s rights campaigner, has received an order from the Higher Regional Court in Cologne barring her from further comparisons.

The initial complaint, lodged against Duwe in March, referred to a series of comments she had made online criticizing the distinct pink and blue butterfly being utilized as a mascot by a board member of the German Society for Transidentity and Intersexuality (DGTI – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Transidentität und Intersexualität).

The butterfly, which has been named Fiely, is a mascot of the northern German trans self-help group Fielappers – a low-German word translating to “butterflies.” Trans-identified male DGTI board member Julia Steenken has appeared holding the butterfly in public situations, and, according to Duwe, the mascot has been present in photos taken at several court proceedings, at meetings of the national parliament or Bundestag, in medical clinics, at events with families, and with the police.

The butterfly mascot was designed by Andrea Fleßner, a trans-identified male involved in the founding of Fielappers. Fleßner also has a close working relationship with DGTI.

Fiely is often seen posed amongst other childlike-toys on its dedicated Facebook page.

On social media and her blog, Duwe questioned the meaning behind the butterfly, specifically asking why Steenken, who was a board member at DGTI at the time, was displaying the pastel pink, blue and white toy in a historic press photo. The photo featured four other trans-identified males: Jeanne Riedel, Ann-Kathrin Bürger, Petra Weitzel and Member of Parliament for the Green Party, Markus “Tessa” Ganserer.

The press photo had already been subject to much discussion on social media, and Duwe offered her own thoughts on X (formerly Twitter) after taking part in a discussion on Facebook, suggesting that the butterfly mascot had some resemblance to a logo known to be associated with the “child lover” movement. She articulated her thoughts further in a post on her Substack.

“The butterfly with light blue and pink heart-shaped wings is also known internationally as a symbol for ‘child lover,'” Duwe wrote. “These symbols are used by the US FBI as an identification marker for pederast rings. In addition to adults, Fielappers also advises relatives and parents of ‘trans children’ and offers a brochure.”

According to the Fielappers website, the crocheted butterfly took inspiration from other crocheted children’s toys, and “can … be male, female or any other gender or gender identity.”

In 2016, the FBI declassified information on the symbolism pedophiles utilize to indicate their attraction. Amongst the seemingly abstract logos, a pink-and-blue butterfly with heart shaped wings was reported as a symbol used by pedophiles with “no gender preference” for the children they sought to abuse.

Duwe told Reduxx that shortly after publishing the post, she received a cease and desist notice from the law office of Dr. Jasper Prigge on March 6, which stated that she was being “warned” against “any further statements about our client Julia Steenken.” The notice highlighted a specific “highly defamatory” quote from Duwe’s Substack post in which she stated that the “mascot … is also attributed to pedophile rings.”

On April 19, Duwe appeared in a Düsseldorf court to defend her statements. Steenken was not in attendance, and instead his legal representative, Prigge, was present to accuse her of defamation on his behalf.

Four months later, after a costly legal battle, the Higher Regional Court in Cologne affirmed that Duwe’s comments, while not defamatory, required restraint. The court ruling warned her and others against making strong comparisons between the logo and Fiely in the future, though admitting the two bore some similarity.

Yet despite the fact Duwe was found to have done nothing wrong in a legal sense, the cost of court fees were split equally between Steenken and Duwe, even though he had been the one to initiate the litigation. Duwe told Reduxx that in total, she was forced to spend approximately €7,000 (approx. $7,400 USD) in order to defend herself.

On September 10, in response to the decision from the court, a photo of Fiely was posted alongside an announcement stating that the group’s mascot would not be changed.

Though the Cologne court did agree with Duwe that the symbols bear a resemblance to each other, trans activists and members of the German press have used the ruling to warn those critical of gender ideology against making similar statements.

Steenken’s lawyer, Jasper Prigge, issued a press release on September 3 suggesting anyone who replicated Duwe’s statements could face legal action.

Pro-LGBT publication Queer.de went a step further, releasing an article with the headline, “Blogger is not allowed to associate trans woman with pedophilia,” and compared Duwe to the nation’s far-right political movement.

Steenken is a prominent member of Germany’s trans activist community, and is known for having contributed to the draft of a gender self-identification bill that was recently passed.

In 2019, the German government offered DGTI a draft of the proposed gender self-identification bill, inviting their input. Steenken then responded with a revision proposal on behalf of the DGTI board.

Notably, one source cited by Steenken in the revision proposal is sexologist Gunter Schmidt, who has previously made statements sympathetic of pedophilia. In a 1991 article for the Journal of Homosexuality, Schmidt wrote, “A person’s age, or the difference in age between the partners, says too little about the nature and quality of their relationship to justify making laws against such partnerships merely on the strength of this information. Pedophile relationships are extremely varied, despite their common features, too varied to allow us to use the term ‘sexual abuse’ as a synonym without being guilty of discriminating against and defaming a whole group of people.”

In March of 2020, while being consulted on the draft of the bill once again, Steenken called for the total removal of any requirements necessitating a medical diagnosis in order to change one’s legal sex. Writing on behalf of the entire DGTI board, Steenken also stated that he saw “no justification” for an age limit.

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